Richard III Society

With about 2,500 members worldwide, the Richard III Society is one of the largest historical societies, not only about the topic and times of the War of the Roses and especially King Richard III, but as a historical society in general. The Society not only holds branches in the U.K., but also major branches in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and lots of further countries. (A list of branches, their websites and contact details follows below.)

The patron of the Richard III Society, His Royal Highness The Duke of Gloucester, holds the title which King Richard III held, before he became King of England.
That is a binding and very important connection, which leads from King Richard III’s time into our presence.

His Royal Highness The Duke of Gloucester also promoted and presented the trial, held to find the truth about King Richard’s supposed crimes in the year 1984, which is presented in the following playlist of videos, created by valentinejay on YouTube.

Some background details about the Richard III Society:

The Society is over 80 years old, founded in the year 1924 by a small group of amateur historians, who did not accept Shakespeare’s version of the life of Richard, nor some of the earlier accounts written by biased historians.

One has to remember that in Victorian times there was much moralising about the fact that it was assumed that Shakespeare was right and that Richard had murdered his nephews, the Princes in the Tower.

What publications does the Society publish?

We publish a quarterly journal which runs to some 70 pages.

“The Ricardian“, an annual publication, is a volume of essays on life in England during the latter half of the fifteenth century. This volume also includes a wide selection of book reviews on the same subjects.

Members of the Society

We have among our members many teaching academics and historians as well as ordinary people with an interest in this period of history.

Research and Projects by the Society

We actually have a dedicated research group which takes on various projects which are deemed to be of merit. Two major projects which have been completed by this group and have taken some ten years in the doing have been concerned with wills and testaments. The idea behind these was to get a detailed view of the social history of England during this period and what better way than to look at wills and testaments. The result of this work was the publishing of, first, an index to over 20,000 wills of this period. Many of these wills are held by local churches situated throughout the land and are written in French / Latin / Old English.

Each will had to be viewed in situ, translated and then checked by at least two other members of the team. The other part of this project was to produce full examples of wills and testaments ranging from those of the wealthy down to the serfs. This was published as a hardback two volume set.

Benefits for members

The benefits are too magnifold to answer in short. But members have the benefit of the quarterly research journals, the extensive information in the yearly book and have the opportunity to attend regular events (this applies both to the U.K. and the overseas branches!), such as study weekends and conferences. Not to forget, the chance by joining a local branch, to meet other Ricardians.

(Those events are solely reserved for members!)

… Link to application form will follow shortly …

The different branches of the Richard III Society are world spanning. To name a few: